Jenna Burlingham Gallery
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Home
  • Artists
  • Artworks
  • Exhibitions
  • News
  • About
  • How to Buy
  • Contact
Cart
0 items £
Checkout

Item added to cart

View cart & checkout
Continue shopping
Menu

MODERN BRITISH

Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: John Wells, Rocky Coast, 1951
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: John Wells, Rocky Coast, 1951

John Wells 1907-2000

Rocky Coast, 1951
oil on board
30 x 35.5 cm
11 3/4 x 14 in
signed, titled and dated verso

Further images

  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 1 ) Thumbnail of additional image
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 2 ) Thumbnail of additional image
The same year this work was painted, 1951, the British Arts Council invited Wells to exhibit in the San Paulo Biennial in the Festival of Britain. Later that year, Wells...
Read more
The same year this work was painted, 1951, the British Arts Council invited Wells to exhibit in the San Paulo Biennial in the Festival of Britain. Later that year, Wells entered the American stage as one of only five St Ives artists invited to submit works to the 15th Annual Artists International Association Abstract Art exhibition in New York (the first time a British section had been included in the New York show the first significant showing of British Abstract painting in the USA). At this show Wells’ work hung alongside those of Hepworth, Nicholson, Lanyon, Frost and Barns-Graham and also Rothko, de Kooning and Motherwell. Wells' introduction to the American market met with significant success and there followed one-man shows in the Durlacher Gallery in New York in 1952, 1958 and 1960. In 1958 the International Association of Art Critics awarded him the Critics’ Prize for ‘Vista’ (1955); one of the artist’s powerful Cornish landscape-inspired works of the mid-50s.

At this point in his career, Wells was interested in evoking a sense of movement over and in fact, through the rugged landscape of Cornwall, capturing in his tonal harmonies and structures the granite cliffs, geographical structures and minerals of the land. As Martin Rowe observes “These (landscapes of the 1950s) are products of Wells’ immense knowledge of his surroundings and their forms gained over time … However, they combine this with an interest in formal geometrical structure, subtle colour harmonies, a distilled study of natural forms and a painstaking technique to create a complex but ordered, constructed landscape”.



Close full details
Enquire
%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EJohn%20Wells%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3ERocky%20Coast%3C/span%3E%2C%20%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E1951%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3Eoil%20on%20board%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E30%20x%2035.5%20cm%3Cbr/%3E%0A11%203/4%20x%2014%20in%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22signed_and_dated%22%3Esigned%2C%20titled%20and%20dated%20verso%3C/div%3E
Previous
|
Next
458 
of  473

Copyright © 2025 Jenna Burlingham Gallery

Delivery and Returns      Privacy Policy

Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Join the mailing list
Send an email
View on Google Maps
Privacy Policy
Manage cookies
Copyright © 2025 Jenna Burlingham Gallery
Site by Artlogic

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences
Close

Join Our Mailing List

We won't spam you. We will send a monthly email highlighting new artworks and events, with very occasional other mailings.

Interests *

Sign Up

* denotes required fields

In order to respond to your enquiry, we will process the personal data you have supplied in accordance with our privacy policy. You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in any emails.